Why You Should Become a Christian: Conclusion

-
I hope that you have found this little series to be helpful.  I have outlined the reasons that I have chosen to be a Christian and to remain in the faith.  I have shared much of my own personal intellectual and emotional journey.

The reasons given are not persuasive arguments for everyone. I pray that if you are a person who does not find them convincing that you will at least be motivated to explore other arguments and approaches.

Some places to look on the internet are: www.str.org, www.ligonier.org, www.carm.org, and www.4truth.net.  

Some helpful books include The Reason for God by Timothy Keller, Reasons to Believe by R. C. Sproul, Reasonable Faith by William Lane Craig, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Richard Bauckham, and I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek.  These men differ on many theological issues, but their arguments for God’s existence and the truth of the Bible are sound.  

Some other names to research include Greg Bahnsen, Cornelius Van Til, Alvin Plantinga, John Frame, and Craig Blomberg. 

The ultimate aim of this blog is to point others to Christ as the great Lord and Savior. He is the one Person who has walked the earth who is worthy of true worship and lavish praise. May His glory be over all the earth.

Comments

ben stewart said…
I believe in absolute truth and that the New Testament is the agreement now in effect between God and man. That the New Covenant was sealed with Jesus blood that He offered on the cross, was buried, and rose the third day according to the scriptures. I do not know if you are up for sharing truth but I used to be a Baptist and now I am not. I do not think that there is two ways to be saved. One of us has a misunderstanding, and I do not believe it to be me, I am not doing this to bash anyone but to try to explain why I left the Baptist faith...

Here is why... pardon my folly:

Do you teach a person can pray Christ for salvation and then be saved. This is not what Jesus taught.

Jesus said in “Mark 16:15-16 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. (16) He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.”

You are teaching, believe and pray and then you are saved… That is not what the real Jesus said. He said Believe and be baptized then you are saved.

I challenge anyone to: Please send me an example of a sinner praying for salvation saying the sinner’s prayer in the New Testament after Jesus offered himself for our sins and being raised the morning of the 3rd day…

The best I can find by searching the scriptures is Saul the one that became the Apostle Paul. He was struck blind on the road to Damascus because he was fighting against Jesus and then when he realized he prayed and fasted for 3 days. Then he was told to arise and wash away his sins calling on the name of Jesus (Acts 22:16). Calling on the name of Jesus obviously included baptism not prayer. If prayer alone saved a man then there was no need to wash away sin.

You say baptism is a work, yes it is a work of God and the sinner is submissive allowing God to cleanse his soul and receive the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38; 1 Pet 3:20-21). The sinner is doing nothing but obeying the command to allow God to wash away his sins.

By the way, faith is not emotion or belief alone but obedience to what God said because God said it. (Rom 10:17; James 2:18-20)


In Christ (Gal 3:27),

Ben Stewart
morningstar65@hotmail.com
November 05, 2015
J. K. Jones said…
Not sure I follow everything you are saying, but, here goes.

The Bible does not say that one must pray a sinner's prayer of some type to be saved. It does say we must repent of our sins and believe the gospel. That having been said, prayer to God is one way to express that repentance and faith that has been helpful to many.

Baptism is a sacrament that God uses to signify and seal our union with Christ, our taking the benefits of grace, and our engagement to be the Lord’s. It is administered not only to those who believe, but also to those who are sons and daughters of those who believe. This is because baptism is analogous to circumcision in the Old Testament.

Baptism should always be administered to those who believe who have not been baptized in the past when there is a chance. Some, like the thief that expressed faith on the cross, do not have a chance to be baptized. It is not relevant whether Christ was raised from the dead at the time the thief was on the cross because believers in the Old Testament were saved in essentially the same way as believers are saved in the New Testament.

Also, you might check the footnotes and text notes in many modern translations of the Bible which call much of the ending of Mark’s Gospel into question. It seems the passage you cite is not contained in the earliest manuscripts of Holy Scripture. I believe the Bible to be completely true in all it said in the original manuscripts, and I think we have reliable knowledge of what was in those original manuscripts, but I will not base my faith on a questionable passage.

In faith, a Christian believes to be true whatsoever is revealed in the Bible, for God speaks in His Word. The Christian also acts differently upon that which each particular passage says; he obeys the commands, trembles at the threats, and believes the promises to be true. Yet the main thing saving faith does is accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for salvation and progress in the Christian life.

I am not sure what kind of Christian you think I am in terms of denominational leanings, but a careful reader can recognize the allusions to the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Westminster Shorter Catechism in what I have said above. I am a Ruling Elder in The Presbyterian Church in America, and I subscribe to those standards without reservation because I believe them to summarize what the Bible teaches.

I am glad to continue this conversation if you wish. This comment has been more explanatory that argumentative, but I can present arguments from Scripture with chapter and verse references for all of the things above if desired.
November 05, 2015
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Face of Terror

-
Osama Bin laden is dead. Since the rest of the internet is buzzing with opinions on that death, I thought I would weigh in. First, this is not the end of global terrorism. Like the Hydra of old, when one head is chopped off, two more take its place. We still need diligence in our fight against global terror. U. S. and allied Armed Forces still need our prayers. We still need a strong military and intelligence community. We have not yet cut off the Hydra’s immortal head. Second, the way to get to the ‘heart of the matter’ is with Christian missionary efforts. We must reach the people who make up those societies and population segments that produce terrorists . To tell a story I have told here before : Early in the twentieth century, Baptist evangelists preached through rural Mississippi and Alabama with such effectiveness that moonshiners could no longer sell their whiskey: All their customers were getting converted! In desperation, the whiskey sellers hired two men to murder on...
Read more

The Canons of Dort

-
I believe that the Canons of Dort are true. This is a statement that came out the Synod of Dort, held from 1618-1619. The Canons of Dort outline the system of theology known today as the “five points of Calvinism.” The problem I have with most “five-point Calvinists” is that the Canons of Dort contain much more than five points. Many explanations of the TULIP (total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace and the perseverance of the saints) are gross simplifications of the Canons of Dort. [This is especially true of explanations given by those who oppose Calvinism. It is easier to knock down a straw man than it is to knock down a real man, and so it is easier to criticize an oversimplified Calvinism that the more robust form.] Some of those who teach the “five points” leave out some of the quotes below: This death of God's Son is the only and entirely complete sacrifice and satisfaction for sins; it is of infinite value and worth, more than ...
Read more

Intelligent Design

-
The Intelligent Design (ID) movement makes much of the argument from irreducible complexity. Dr. Michael Behe has become famous for a simple example, the mousetrap. He points out that the mousetrap will not perform its function without all of its parts. The wooden base, the metal hammer, a spring, a catch and a metal bar to hold back the hammer are all necessary parts. One component by itself will not catch a mouse. Mainstream evolutionary science has a counter-argument. To paraphrase Dr. Kenneth Miller, if you disassemble the mousetrap, each component can serve as something useful on its own. If we take away the catch and metal bar, we have something left that can serve as a paper clip. The spring could make a simple two-section key chain. The wooden base makes a paperweight. Evolutionary processes like random mutation and natural selection can combine and retain the useful parts as the complicated evolves to perform the complex function. The useful parts are combined into the mousetr...
Read more